Jesus was never a personal coach.  He didn't farm himself out to those needing more "focus" in their lives. People never booked him for weekly appointments that fit into their busy schedules. He rarely (if ever) had individual meetings with his disciples.

Yet discipleship, in recent decades, has become far too individualized a venture.  Modern disciples commonly view their own discipling as an exercise in mentoring -- personalized and privatized.

But this is NOT what Jesus himself modeled.  Instead, he called people into a community of other disciples who observed, practiced and learned the ways of the Master together.

In the Gospel of Mark, we frequently encounter those who are not disciples ("outsiders") acting as true disciples ("insiders") should, and Mark uses this contrast to provide his audience (among other things) with insights into what being a disciple of Jesus is all about.  Near the end of chapter 3, for example, Mark writes how Jesus' family is standing outside the house where he is ministering, while the crowd is seated around him (as disciples).

One of the truths embedded in this passage is that discipleship takes place in community with others.  It is never presented as an individual pursuit. A disciple in isolation is an oxymoron!

In her commentary on this section of Mark's Gospel, Sharyn Dowd asserts the following:

It is impossible to overestimate the importance for Christian formation of community life that is centered on the presence of Jesus.  To counteract today's individualistic and activist construals of discipleship, Christocentric community life is esential, though extraordinarily hard to find. 1

In a culture poisoned by rampant individualism and the privatization of faith, the need has never been greater for disciples who have committed themselves to following Jesus together.  Today's world is tiring of institutionalized Christianity but not of Jesus.  They long for authentic community but are not sure how to experience it.

The sooner we divorce ourselves from our overly individualistic pursuits of spirituality and practice instead a discipleship-within-community, the sooner we'll begin to see "Christians" live up to the name.

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1 Sharon Dowd, Reading Mark: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Second Gospel.  Macon, Georgia: Smyth & Helwys Publishing, 2000, p. 31.

You've probably heard this before, but I'd enjoy hearing your thoughts and reactions concerning the concept:

"A God without wrath, brings people without sin, into a kingdom without judgment, to a Christ without a cross."

Some would consider the very idea of a wrathful God to be primative and unenlightened.  Others probably avoid the concept all together, deeming it taboo.

In a culture of tolerance, acceptance, and radical egalitarianism, how can a God of wrath be understood, if at all?

If you didn't get a chance to read my post from July 13th, entitled, "The Religion-Relationship Farce," you can now catch an expanded and polished version of it appearing in this month's issue of NextWave (thanks to publisher, Charlie Wear).

It's practically a mantra:

"Postmodernism is concerned more with asking the right questions than in providing the right answers."

Yet, I keep running into millenials, x'rs, and other postmodern thinkers who are yearning for something beyond mere questions -- no matter how important they are!

G. K. Chesterton once observed:

We have looked for questions in the darkest corners and on the wildest peaks.  We have found all the questions that can be found.  It is time we gave up looking for questions and began looking for answers (Orthodoxy, p. 34).

Breaking free from the demands of modern empiricalism has been (and continues to be) a good thing.  But within this new paradigm that supposedly values "both-and" thinking, shouldn't we endeavor to help people find some answers as well as the right questions?